The experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of dihydropyridine on laying performance and fat metabolism of laying hens. Five hundred and forty laying hens, 40 weeks old, were randomly allotted to three groups, each of which included four replicates of 45 hens. The groups were given a basal corn-soybean meal diet supplemented with 0, 150 mg/kg and 300 mg/kg dihydropyridine. Results showed that compared with the control group (0 mg/kg dihydropyridine), supplements of 150 and 300 mg/kg dihydropyridine increased egg production rate by 9.39% (p<0.01) and 12.97% (p<0.01), increased mean egg weight by 3% (p>0.05) and 4.8% (p>0.05), and improved feed efficiency by 9.54% (p<0.05) and 7.25% (p<0.05), respectively; The addition of 150 and 300 mg/kg dihydropyridine decreased percentage of abdominal fat by 35.4% (p<0.05) and 46.9% (p<0.05), decreased liver fat content by 32.4% (p<0.05) and 10.5% (p<0.05), increased HSL activity of abdominal fat by 39.64% (p<0.05) and 48.48% (p<0.05), increased HSL activity of liver by 9.4% (p>0.05) and 47.34% (p<0.05) and increased the content of cAMP in adenohypophysis by 14.67% (p<0.05) and 10.91% (p<0.05), respectively; The inclusion of 150 mg/kg dihydropyridine increased liver superoxide dismutase activity by 69.61% (p<0.05), and increased hepatic apoB concentration by 53.96% (p<0.05); The supplementation of 150 or 300 mg/kg dihydropyridine decreased malondialdehyde concentration of hepatic mitochondria by 30.90% (p<0.01) and 10.39% (p<0.05), respectively; Supplemented dihydropyridine had no significant effects on TG, Ch HDL-C and VLDL-C concentrations in serum; addition of 150 or 300 mg/kg dihydropyridine increased T 3 levels in serum by 15.34% (p<0.05) and 11.88% (p<0.05) and decreased insulin concentration by 40.44% (p<0.05) and 54.37% (p<0.05), respectively. The results demonstrated that adding dihydropyridine had the tendency of improving very low density lipoprotein receptor (VLDLR) content in the ovary. It was concluded that dihydropyridine could improve laying performance and regulate the fat metabolism of laying hens and that 150 mg/kg dihydropyridine is the optimum dose for laying birds in practical conditions.

Context: Neuregulin 4 (Nrg4) and neuregulin 1 (Nrg1) have been shown to play vital roles in several disorders of glucose metabolism. The pathophysiological role of Nrg4 and Nrg1 in gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), however, remains poorly understood. We assessed the clinical relevance of the two cytokines in patients with GDM. Methods: The study recruited 36 GDM patients and 38 age-matched, gestational age (24–28 weeks of gestation)–matched, and BMI (during pregnancy)–matched controls in this study. Serum Nrg4 and Nrg1 were measured using ELISA. Inflammatory factors such as IL-6, IL-1β, leptin, TNF-α, and monocyte chemotactic protein 1 (MCP-1) were determined via Luminex technique. Results: Serum Nrg4 in GDM patients was significantly lower than that in the controls, while Nrg1 was significantly higher in the GDM group ( p < 0.01). Inflammatory factors such as IL-6, leptin, and TNF-α were significantly increased in GDM patients, while MCP-1 and IL-1β were not significantly different between the two groups. In addition, serum Nrg4 was negatively correlated with fasting glucose ( r = −0.438, p = 0.008), HOMA-IR ( r = −0.364, p = 0.029), IL-6 ( r = −0.384, p = 0.021), leptin ( r = −0.393, p = 0.018), TNF-α ( r = −0.346, p = 0.039), and MCP-1 ( r = −0.342, p = 0.041), and positively correlated with high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) ( r = −0.357, p = 0.033) in GDM group. Serum Nrg1 was positively correlated with BMI ( r = 0.452, p = 0.006), fasting glucose ( r = 0.424, p = 0.010), HOMA-IR ( r = 0.369, p = 0.027), and triglyceride ( r = 0.439, p = 0.007). The decrease of Nrg4 and the increase of Nrg1 were significantly related to the increased prevalence of GDM. Finally, ROC curve results indicated that Nrg1 combined with IL-6 and TNF-α might be an effective means for GDM screening. Conclusions: Lower circulating Nrg4 and higher circulating Nrg1 serve risk factors of GDM. Nrg1 combined with IL-6 and TNF-α might be a potential tool for GDM screening.

Summary This article studies the adaptive control for synchronization of semi‐linear complex spatio‐temporal networks (CSNs). And the leader‐following and leaderless CSN with time‐invariant coupling delay and time‐variant coupling delay are developed separately from two aspects. The adaptive control strategies are proposed to reach the asymptotic convergence of synchronization error. Synchronization criteria and sufficient conditions are obtained for the leader‐following CSN error model and leaderless CSN error model by constructing the apposite Lyapunov–Krasovskii functions and applying Wirtinger's inequality. Finally, two experimental examples are given to verify the feasibility of the theories proposed in this article.

In this paper, we consider the Sierpinski carpet fractal networks Gt constructed by the Sierpinski carpet F. Firstly, the structure properties of Gt, including degree distribution and clustering coefficient, are studied. Then, the weighted average geodesic distances of the Sierpinski carpet fractal F are analyzed by using the integral of geodesic distance in terms of self-similar measure with respect to the weight vector. Further the weighted average geodesic distances of the Sierpinski carpet fractal networks is obtained.

More and more attention has focused on consensus problem in the study of complex networks. Many researchers investigated consensus dynamics in a linear dynamical system with additive stochastic disturbances. In this paper, we construct iterated line graphs of multi-subdivision graph by applying multi-subdivided-line graph operation. It has been proven that the network coherence can be characterized by the Laplacian spectrum of network. We study the recursion formula of Laplacian eigenvalues of the graphs. After that, we obtain the scalings of the first- and second-order network coherence.